George Hamilton: 'Please don't think I just went out with famous women...'

The last of Hollywood's gentleman playboys has finally written his
autobiography, in which he reveals all about his relationships with
Elizabeth Taylor, Cary Grant, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, and many more.
We meet the man behind the permatan

George Hamilton at home in LA, May 2009Photo: Jill Greenberg

By John Preston

7:00AM BST 10 May 2009

There is a picture hanging in George Hamilton's apartment on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. By any standards, it's an astonishing work of art. The subject of the picture has been painted against a brooding black sky, with his back to a churning sea below. He's wearing a long trench coat with the collar turned up and has one foot forward as if he's about to step out of the frame. His hair – raven black – is swept back, the chin chiselled, the mouth full and slightly curled up at the corners, as if he's laughing at some private joke.

The subject, of course, is George Hamilton himself. 'Isn't it the most extraordinary thing?' he says. 'My mother wanted me to have it done, although that's hardly any excuse.' He gives a chuckle. 'Only an actor would have that on his wall, don't you think?' But, whatever the deficiencies of the artist – legion – he's managed to capture the contradiction that lies at the heart of George Hamilton. Here is someone who seems to suffer from one of the most advanced cases of narcissism ever recorded. Yet, at the same time, that upward curl of the mouth, that private smile, suggests that he doesn't actually take himself seriously at all. That he relishes his own absurdity.

Throughout his life – he will be 70 in August – Hamilton has had a keen eye for the absurd, and for the grotesque. During our conversation, he recalls how, back in 1977, he was invited by his good friend Colonel Tom Parker to see the recently deceased Elvis Presley lying in his coffin.

As he approached the coffin for a last look, Hamilton saw a little trickle of hair dye running down the King's forehead into his ear. 'I just thought, "Whoah! Somebody better do something about that." I said something to Elvis's lead guitarist, Charlie Hodges. The whole thing was a little awkward because Charlie had dyed Elvis's hair himself and he was very proud of what a good job he'd done. However, they decided to stop the funeral for a few moments to wipe it away.'

Now Hamilton has written his autobiography, Don't Mind If I Do. As you would expect, there are accounts of his friendships and rivalries with stars such as Judy Garland, Elvis, Frank Sinatra, Cary Grant and Robert Mitchum.

Then, of course, there are the affairs with Jeanne Moreau, Britt Ekland, Elizabeth Taylor, Alana Stewart, Danielle Steel, Sylvia Kristel, Lyndon Johnson's daughter, Lynda Bird – Johnson was President at the time – and Hamilton's own stepmother. He also once had a date with Marilyn Monroe, although they didn't hit it off: 'I was terribly intimidated.'

Somehow, it's hard to imagine Hamilton being intimidated by anyone. Even at 10 o'clock in the morning, fresh off a flight from Florida, everything about him is as assured as it is immaculate – from his canary yellow socks, to the paisley handkerchief spilling symmetrically from the breast pocket of his jacket. His famously burnished skin does not disappoint either; it's the colour and texture of French-polished veal.

'Please don't get the impression that I just went out with famous women,' he says. He wafts his hand and a little cloud of cologne escapes from his cuff and drifts across the room. No, no, don't think that for a moment. There were lots of other, less famous girlfriends, all of whom he seems to have parted from on remarkably amicable terms.

It's been a life of elegant insouciance on the one hand, and shinning down drainpipes at 3am pursued by enraged husbands, on the other. A gentleman half the time, a cad the other. During the early Sixties, Hamilton even managed to wind up in the middle of the Profumo affair – after enjoying a fling with Mandy Rice-Davies.

But, there turns out to be another side to George Hamilton. A much more solitary, ascetic side that few are allowed to see. 'I take out the little dummy,' he says of his chat-show persona. 'I take him out whenever people ask and I make him do his little dance. Of course, part of him is me, but not all. I hope not anyway.'

Hamilton may never have been that great an actor – he'd be the last to make such a claim – but he's always been very adept at putting on a front to face the world. In large part, this must have been a result of his childhood. For most of his early years, he zipped around all over the US with his mother – a bit-part actress called Teeny, who was a kind of cross between Scarlett O'Hara and Blanche Dubois. When he was eight, Hamilton beat the great jazz musician Hoagy Carmichael in a poker game. This was shortly before Teeny rejected an advance from Ronald Reagan, finding him 'too wholesome'.

There's also a picture of his mother on the wall. Swathed in white furs and with a large diamond necklace around her neck, she has one of those come-hither looks that also seems to be putting you in your place.

His father, Spike, a bandleader – Spike Hamilton and his Barbary Coast Orchestra – had bailed out of the marriage when Hamilton was five. They didn't see one another very often. At least not until Hamilton and his new stepmother got to know one another a little better.

From his mother, Hamilton learned one lesson above all: Never Rely On Anybody For Anything. In a lot of respects, this credo has defined his life.

By then, Hamilton had developed what he calls, 'a form of sophistication that was kind of precocious.' This was to stand him in good stead when, aged 12, he went to New York City to stay with his father and stepmother, June. One day, when Hamilton Snr was at work, June came into the living room, wearing a wispy little gown, lay down next to George on the sofa and mentioned something about cuddling.

'It really didn't seem that strange to me,' he says. 'I think I'd developed enough sexual energy by then to find the whole thing… well, interesting. When I look back on it, I don't think my life was changed as a result. I certainly don't think it was abuse. If anything, I think it made sex less important. I'd lost my virginity quite early on, and this freed me up. I wasn't so preoccupied with sex anymore.'

Around this time, Hamilton also discovered the joys of tanning. Again, it was to be a defining moment. In Palm Beach in Florida, he found that the browner his skin was, the more female attention he attracted. Without a tan, he merged into the shadows. With one, he instantly turned into a babe-magnet.

'I decided then that suntanning was going to be to me what the funny blue suit was to Superman.' It also meant that Hamilton could effectively reinvent himself. 'I was able to pass myself off as this Palm Beach millionaire playboy with the aid of a good tan and the bespoke English clothes I picked up in thrift shops.'

Ever since, whatever the weather, Hamilton has faced the world from behind a richly bronzed exterior – in the late Eighties, he even launched his own range of tanning products. As he's found, it's a useful and well-nigh impenetrable camouflage. Once, while suffering from jaundice, he bumped into a friend who told him he'd never seen him looking in such great shape.

Aged 19, in the summer of 1958, he headed for Hollywood determined to become a film star. This was the era of James Dean and Marlon Brando and ripped T-shirts. With his blazer and his loafers and his suave manners, Hamilton didn't really fit it. None the less, he got himself an agent, then landed the lead role in a modern-day version of Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment.

Much to everyone's surprise – not least Hamilton's – the film did pretty well and MGM promptly offered him a seven-year contract. 'In those days, you could basically build yourself a screen personality. People would ask, "what do you want to be?" And you'd go, "Well, I'd like a bit of him and a bit of him and I'd like to wear these kinds of clothes." That suited me very well because I'd always had a chameleon-like quality.'

Hamilton was thrilled with his new image. There was a bit of Cary Grant in there, a bit of Erroll Flynn – Erroll's son, Sean, was his best friend – and a dab of Clark Gable. In order to launch this new persona, he realised he needed to make a big social splash. For $1,500 he bought a Rolls-Royce: a 1939 Sedanca De Ville, Phantom III with a Spitfire engine that had been built for George VI. He also bought a chauffeur's uniform and drove around Beverly Hills wearing it. Whenever anyone asked him who the car belonged to, he would say, 'Why, George Hamilton, of course.'

At the time, he was earning $500 a week. This was good money, especially for someone of his age. But, instead of being grateful, Hamilton marched straight into MGM and demanded they double it to $1,000.

'I get the impression that you didn't really care about the money,' I say to him. 'Also that you wouldn't have been that bothered if they'd said no. It was just that you enjoyed flirting with absurdity.'

'Flirting with absurdity…' Hamilton rolls the words round his mouth. 'I wish I'd thought of that as a title. You're absolutely right. I just took the position that I was going to deign to be involved with these people. It was like a character I chose.'

Of course, Hamilton got his way – MGM immediately caved in and acceded to all of his demands. So with his Rolls and his tan and his flashing keyboard smile, he soon moved into the innermost circle of Hollywood life. Perhaps it's not that surprising that someone with such a brass neck should attract the attention of that legendary shyster, Colonel Tom Parker.

'He became a kind of father figure to me. Taught me an awful lot about negotiation. He once said, "Whatever I can do for you, I should be doing for Elvis." I was there on several occasions with just the two of them. Elvis was not dumb. Actually, he was a bright guy. He was just… lost. I remember once walking down a street in Beverly Hills with about six of his guys and Elvis suddenly started screaming, "Watch out! That could be Oswald. That could be a gunman." I thought, "Jesus, this is real paranoia."

'Then, two months later, I'm in Austin, Texas with President Johnson. We're driving in his car and all of a sudden he starts screaming over the intercom to the Secret Service, "Watch out! That could be Oswald. That could be a gunman." Exactly the same words as Elvis used. And I'm going, "Whoah! This is weird."

'Would you like some coffee?' he says suddenly. 'I could use a cup.' We go into the kitchen. On the side is a coffee maker and alongside it a perspex box with little individual tubs of coffee inside. Hamilton peers at them through his horn-rimmed glasses. 'Hmm, what do you think? Brazilian? Costa Rican? I think I might have Costa Rican.'

His apartment is large if peculiarly sterile – more like a show-flat than a home. But it turns out he's only spent a couple of weeks there since he bought it last year; he spends most of his time at his house in Florida. 'I love the location,' he says, gesturing out at the huge white apartment blocks that line Wilshire Boulevard. 'But when I come here, either I work (recently, he's produced a film about his mother, My One and Only, starring Renee Zellweger, which is coming out later this year) or else I read. I consume an enormous number of books, but they're always on a particular subject because I'm obsessive.'

The books on his glass coffee table, including Dr Schulze's 5-Day Liver Detox and 25 Ways to Prevent Colds and Flu, suggest that health ranks high on his list of obsessions. Right now, though, he is preparing to go off to Cambodia to try to find out what happened to his friend Sean Flynn, who disappeared there in 1970. A one-time actor turned photojournalist, Flynn is believed to have been killed by the Khmer Rouge – he was declared legally dead in 1984. Now, almost half a century on, and after years of research, Hamilton now believes he has a realistic chance of discovering how Flynn died.

'Sean was one of those people who pushed the envelope too far. He became bored with life, I think, and stepped over the line. Although I hate things being predictable, I've never done that.'

Yet within his own slice of turf, Hamilton has still lived pretty dangerously. He's rumoured to have once had a fling with Imelda Marcos. Then, back in the early Sixties, he went out with Queen Soraya of Persia – the former wife of the Shah – only to find that Frank Sinatra was also keen on her.

'She'd rejected Frank for being too old, and Frank… well, he didn't like that too much. Frank's most unique artifice was that he was able to change instantly from being perfectly pleasant to being threatening. In my opinion, it was a blood-sugar thing. Soraya and I were in this restaurant in Palm Springs once and Frank tipped off the maître d that I was too young – I was 20 at the time and you had to be over 21 to drink in California. As I was being chucked out, he started singing You Make Me Feel So Young. Despite everything, I thought that was pretty cool.

'Actually, Frank was always nice to me. That said, I remember the Hollywood hairdresser, Jay Sebring – he was killed in the Sharon Tate murders – told me that he was cutting Frank's hair one day. Frank was thumbing through a magazine and he came to a picture of me. He showed the picture to Jay and said, "That's the kind of guy I really hate.'" Hamilton gives another chuckle.

It was while having his own hair cut in the early Sixties – at Vidal Sassoon in London – that Hamilton met Mandy Rice-Davies and Christine Keeler.

'I had this old Rolls and this chauffeur called Ted, who turned out to be wanted by Interpol. Ted introduced me to Mandy in this nightclub. A couple of days afterwards she sent me a poem and suggested we got together. So I saw her a couple of times.'

Two weeks later, the Profumo scandal broke. 'Christine Keeler called me up and said, "Mr Hamilton, I don't know you, but I want to give you some advice. Stay away – there are journalists everywhere. You're a gentleman. That's why I'm telling you this." I thought that was very nice of her.' After all this, it comes as quite a surprise to hear Hamilton say that he's always been a shy man – especially around women. 'I know that may be hard to believe, but it's true. Basically, I'm a shy human being. Very introverted. I love the company of women, I always have done, but now,any woman I lie down with, she's going to… well, she's going to creak a bit. And so am I. On the whole, I'm happier to creak by myself. I'm also a loner; I don't have many close friends. A million acquaintances, but few close friends.'

Despite innumerable relationships, he's only ever been married once, to Alana Stewart (Colonel Tom Parker was their Best Man). They had a son, Ashley, who's now 35. Hamilton has another son, George, aged nine, with his partner of two years, actress Kimberly Blackford.

He's similarly unpossessive, even detached, when it comes to possessions. 'Although I like good things they really don't mean that much to me. I remember once I went over to Cary Grant's house in Palm Springs and all the beds had army blankets on them. I asked, "What are these?" and Cary said, (here Hamilton swings into a faultless Cary Grant impersonation) "But these are excellent blankets. What's the point of getting more expensive ones?" And I knew what he meant.'

When Hamilton moves about – which he does a lot – he tends to travel with the bare minimum of necessities. 'Once, as an experiment, I travelled around the world with a single suit. Before I left, I went to a tailor in Savile Row and asked him to make me a suit that I could wear in any climate and which I could use as a tuxedo, a dinner jacket, a lounge suit and a blazer. He came up with this wonderful thing where all you did was change the buttons depending on what you wanted it to be. I've still got it somewhere…'

Yet, for all Hamilton's solitariness, all his asceticism, he's seldom missed an opportunity to sit at the top table. In the Eighties, he even went out with Elizabeth Taylor. 'Elizabeth is sort of… indoors these days. She's become slightly reclusive. But when I call up, she always sounds pleased to hear from me. She'll say, "Sunshine!", and we'll start talking away. But I think this happens to lots of women as they get older. They weigh up the desire to go out against the amount of time it takes them to get prepared. In the end, they decide not to bother.'

Somewhere, amid all the partying, the reading and the travelling, Hamilton has managed to appear in 89 films and assorted television series, most notably, Dynasty. Some of his movies have been beyond dire (The Happy Hooker Goes to Hollywood), while some – a few anyway – have successfully traded on his charm and his relish for self-mockery. Of these, the best is his 1979 Dracula spoof, Love At First Bite. He's currently toying with the idea of making a sequel, Love At Second Bite. 'I just think it could be really fun to have Dracula losing his castle to Donald Trump and having his money siphoned off by Bernie Madoff,' he says.

Later, he sits on the sofa and subjects himself to a little light self-analysis. 'Sometimes, it's as if I hear this voice going, "Deep down inside you, what is there?" And I say, "What? You mean way down underneath?" And the voice goes, "Yeah, yeah, right at the bottom." And I say, "Deep down underneath, way below everything else – there's a parking garage.'"

'Don't Mind If I Do' by George Hamilton (JR Books £17.99) is available from Telegraph Books for £15.99 plus £1.25 postage and packing. Please call 0844 871 1516 or go to books.telegraph.co.uk